


The Healing of Ronan Lynch

by writerforlife



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Meetings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, More tags to be added as we go, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 06:22:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7303051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerforlife/pseuds/writerforlife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't sudden and it isn't overnight, but as time goes on, Ronan Lynch heals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gansey

**Author's Note:**

> Truth be told, I've been sitting on this one for awhile, now. I was going through documents when I found this, so I figured I would share it. I won't lie by saying I know when updates will be, but I will have writing time!

Halfway through his sophomore year at Aglionby, Ronan Lynch met Richard Gansey III.

It was unusual for new students to show up on any other day but the first day, but sure enough, at the end of November, a desk that hadn’t been previously filled was occupied by a boy with a classically handsome face. Upon looking at his near-regal nose and shaped jawline, Ronan’s hands went sweaty, and he felt his chest tighten. 

The Latin teacher, Mr. Whelk, introduced this new student, and Ronan didn’t catch his name. It had been something long and snobby, he was sure of that, and there were some numbers. During class, Ronan watched him. Despite most of the boys around him being on their phone or drawing lewd pictures on their notes, this new boy gave his undivided attention to Mr. Whelk, studiously copying down notes with an enthusiasm Ronan had never associated with school. He didn’t look away from the board until the bell rang. Ronan wondered what circumstances had brought him to Aglionby and if he would be staying. 

At lunch that same day, Ronan saw the new boy sitting alone at a table, a textbook open in front of him. Ronan glanced to where he usually sat, near Declan and all of his friends, and then back to the new kid. He made his decision. 

“This seat taken?” Ronan set his lunch tray down and sat down without waiting for an answer. The new boy looked up at him with an owlish stare. 

“It is now,” he replied with a grin. 

Ronan glanced at the open book. It was a history textbook, and it was open to a page on ancient Welsh mythology and royalty. A notebook with what Ronan assumed was the boy’s small, cramped handwriting was open next to him. The current page was filled with sketched of lines crossed over each other time and time again, looking more like a spider web than a sketch. “Are you reading that shit outside of a classroom?”

“I am indeed.” A grin had spread across his face, one more suited for someone much older than a high school sophomore. 

“Man, that’s fucking weird.” Ronan didn’t leave, though. In fact, he wanted to know more. 

The new kid offered his right hand. “Richard Gansey III,” he said as he shook Ronan’s hand. “But you can just call me Gansey.”

“Gansey,” Ronan repeated. It felt like he was saying the name of someone he had known forever rather than someone he had met mere minutes ago. “I’m Ronan Lynch.”

“Ronan Lynch.” Gansey tilted his head thoughtfully. “Ronan, what do you know about Welsh kings?”

 

Ronan woke up. His limbs were locked into place, his eyes were glued to the ceiling, and he knew he couldn’t move if he tried. His rigidness taunted him. Blood dripped from his hands, hitting his bedroom drop by drop, every  _ plink  _ mocking him. There was blood on his face, chest, stomach, and he couldn’t wipe it away because he  _ couldn’t fucking move _ . Perhaps the most terrible thing was that all the blood belonged to Gansey. 

His body slowly returned to him, and as soon as he was able to, Ronan scrambled from the bed. He had underestimated his mobility, though, for he fell to his hands and knees and stayed there, trembling in the darkness. 

Ronan hadn’t hated himself for a long time, but in that moment, he was as close as he had been. The horrors of his dream came back to him. Gansey’s body, this time bloody and mutilated to the point where his own family may not have recognized him. The creatures in his dream had kept on tearing at him anyways, no matter how much Ronan screamed or begged for them to stop. Finally, they had stopped, and Ronan had surged forward, trying to find something to salvage. All he had come away with was blood, staining his hands and clothes

He wiped the blood on a discarded shirt next to him before groping around in the darkness to find his phone. When he found it, he dialled one of three phone numbers he had memorized with shaking fingers and put the phone to his ear. While it rang, he tried to even out his breathing. 

“Do you know it’s three in the morning?” Gansey said over the phone. His voice was thick with sleep. Ronan pressed his head into his knees and gripped the phone so hard that he was scared he may break it. “I suppose you’ve never slept like a normal human being, though, have you?” Ronan still didn’t say anything, letting Gansey’s voice wash over him. He took deep, shuddery breaths instead, praying that Gansey didn’t pick up on this panic. It was too late for that, though. “Ronan? Are you okay?”

 

When Niall Lynch died, Ronan had sat in the driveway with his head in his hands, refusing to talk to or look at anyone. If he kept his eyes covered, he wouldn’t see Matthew’s tears or the cracks in Declan’s composure or his mother’s fear. Every time someone tried to put a comforting hand on his shoulder or speak to him, he snarled at them. In time, nobody tried to get near him. 

That was, nobody but Gansey. Not an hour after Niall’s death, Ronan had heard the familiar squeal of tires and slamming of a faulty door, then footsteps approaching him. 

“Hey,” Gansey said. There was the soft sound of jeans scraping against the pavement as Gansey sat down next to Ronan. “Will you look at me?” Ronan wanted to lash out, to scream out that he wasn’t a child and didn’t need to be coddled, but this was Gansey. He raised his head from his hands to see Gansey’s concern displayed on his face as plain as day. 

“I am sorry,” Gansey began in a voice meant only for Ronan to hear, “But I know that won’t bring him back. The police have some questions. It may help bring the murderer to justice if you talk to them.” He placed a hand on Ronan’s shoulder. Ronan knew he could feel the way he was quaking, the way his skin trembled with fear, but he didn’t care. 

Ronan wanted to laugh. Gansey thought about justice because he was noble and brave. Ronan thought about revenge because he wasn’t. He couldn’t bear the thought of talking to cops, answering innumerable questions that would reveal nothing, but he couldn’t say no to Gansey. He stood up. 

“I’ll stay with you,” Gansey said. At the moment, it had meant very little. Over the coming months, it meant having Gansey by his side at Niall’s funeral, when Aurora fell asleep and didn’t wake up, when he found out that he couldn’t live at the Barns anymore, when dream creatures tore his veins open and left him for dead, when he was in the hospital after what everyone thought was a suicide attempt. Ronan knew he would never forget the way Gansey looked by his bedside when he woke up in the hospital that time, a week’s worth of stubble on his face and bags under his eyes. He had never considered sharing his secrets more strongly than that moment. 

Without Gansey, there may have not been Ronan, and Ronan knew it. 

 

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m good.” Ronan stretched his legs out and slumped against the bed. 

“Are you sure?”

“I said I was fucking fine.”

Gansey went quiet, and Ronan wanted to urge him to talk again, just so he knew he was alive and breathing. “Is Maggot there?”

“Blue’s here. She’s asleep.”

“Where are you guys?”

“Las Vegas.” Gansey chuckled. “Henry is a pro at poker. Blue’s not bad, either.” 

“You guys do anything more than kiss?” 

“ _ Ronan _ !” Gansey hissed, and Ronan laughed. Gansey’s face was probably bright red, and he had probably glanced over at Blue helplessly. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He went quiet, waiting for Gansey to say something. 

“Is Adam with you?” 

Ronan pushed himself back onto the bed and stretched out, his heart slowing down and his breaths evening out. “Not tonight. He had to work.”

“He’s been with you a lot, though?” Ronan knew he was smiling. 

“Fuck off, Dick.”

Gansey chuckled again and yawned. “Seriously, are you fine? Nothing bad?”

“Just a dream,” Ronan confessed. 

“About?”

Ronan hesitated. “Bad things.” It wasn’t a lie. Ronan didn’t want to tell Gansey how heavily his death weighed on him. He didn’t think he had the words to express how he had felt upon seeing Gansey’s body on the ground, unmoving and splayed out on the road. If he had had to bury Gansey, had to see his body in a coffin and put him in the ground, that would have been the end of the Ronan Lynch his friends knew. He didn’t know what he would become, but it would have been someone Gansey wouldn’t have approved of. All he knew was that he was thankful. “It’s fine now.”

“If you say so.” Gansey sighed. “You know what? I miss my model Henrietta. Of all things.”

“I’ll start a new one,” Ronan blurted out. “So when you come back and visit, you can tell me how shitty it is.”

“Please do,” Gansey whispered. There was murmuring in the background, and Gansey’s voice became muffled. “I have to go. Blue’s awake.”

“Tell her that she’s an asshole.”

“I will not!”

“Bye, Dick.” Ronan hung up, feeling somewhat settled. The nightmare was still fresh in his mind, whispering terrible things, yet he managed to push it back. It was for another night. A moment later, he got out of bed. He had a town to build. 


	2. Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, but for me, the Blue and Ronan BROTP is one of the best parts of the book. I hope I have done their dynamic justice!!!

When Ronan Lynch first met Blue Sargent, she was holding Adam’s hand. 

He remembered glancing at her tiny hand wrapped up in his elegant fingers and thinking that it fit. Her dark skin looked at home against his tan hands, Henrietta with Henrietta. They had something to talk about, both of them having a similar background. Ronan saw the way Adam leaned close to Blue and whispered in her ear, his pink lips brushing against her ear. 

Adam would always see Ronan as someone foreign, the type of person who would throw out money just because he could. 

He had tried to tell himself that she would go away, but when Adam seemed more enamored with her than ever and Gansey was smitten as well, he realized she was there to stay.  He tried to hate her, but he ended up hating himself more. 

 

Ronan sat down on the couch in the Barns’ living room with two mugs of hot chocolate. He handed one to Blue, and she nodded appreciatively. It was winter, and she, Henry, and Gansey were back in Henrietta for the holidays. Gansey was asleep on the floor, his glasses still on, his arms and legs sprawled out carelessly. Adam was back from college as well, and like Gansey, was asleep, curled up into a ball and his face peaceful in sleep. Henry was visiting the Litchfield crew.

“Look at them,” Blue whispered. When she looked at Gansey, her eyes were wide and warm, and the corner of her mouth quirked up ever so slightly. Ronan wondered how she ever thought that they were being subtle. 

He gazed at Adam, content with just looking at the moment. His hair was unbrushed and wild, the way it looked after they made out. A little bit of drool ran from his open mouth. He was beautiful, and Ronan wondered how he ever thought that he was being subtle. 

Blue nudged him in the rib with her foot gently. “Did you ever think it would end like this?”

Ronan thought about the first moment he had been present enough to see Gansey’s body. Upon seeing him dead, he was convinced that it was the end of everything he had loved without appreciating. He would bury Gansey, slowly fall out of touch with Blue, and argue with Adam as he was crushed by guilt. “No. I didn’t.”

“We’re lucky.”

“Luck doesn’t exist, Maggot.” He knocked back a big sip of his hot chocolate. The sugary taste of it was grounding. His sleep schedule in the past few days had been a bit fucked up. “Magic does, though.”

“Stop being sentimental. Call me an asshole or something.” Blue’s eyes twinkled over the top of her drink, though, so Ronan savagely grinned. They fell into a comfortable silence. Blue stared at Gansey, and Ronan thought about how right they were for each other. 

The silence was interrupted by a snort from Adam. They both watched as he twisted and turned for a moment, then grabbed the blanket Ronan had sarcastically tossed at him and wrapped his body around it. Ronan’s chest suddenly felt warm.

“You’re a sap, Lynch.” Blue’s voice cut through his thoughts.

“I thought Adam was in love with you,” Ronan blurted out before he could think. He instantly regretted this confession and looked away, feeling his face heat up.

“It never would have worked.” Blue tugged on his wrist, forcing him to look at her again. 

He continued to look away, not wanting to address all the questions she inevitably wanted to ask. There was no way he could bring himself to say he had been so afraid that she would take Adam from him forever, to say that he wanted to hate her but he couldn’t, but he just took another sip of his hot chocolate. He mumbled, “I thought it would for a while there.”

Blue knitted her brow together and glanced up thoughtfully. “I thought it would, too. But it wasn’t right for either one of us. We wouldn’t have been good for each other, I can tell you that. We started off with too many secrets between us.”

Ronan kept looking at Adam. “What if I’m not good for him, either?” He couldn’t look at Blue, couldn’t make eye contact with the person he was sharing one of his newest but deepest fears with. “He knows what he wants in life. He knows where he’s going and what he wants to do. What if he thinks I’m holding him back?”

Blue sighed, put her mug on the side table, and scooted closer to Ronan. She laid her head on his shoulder. He tensed at first, but soon the weight of her head was welcome. “You know, Adam called me at the end of the summer. He was in a panic because he was afraid he would suck at being in a long distance relationship and that he would let you down. I can tell you, Ronan, that the thing he was most afraid of wasn’t failing at college but letting you down. Take that as you will.” She closed her eyes.

“Gee, Maggot, you’re actually helpful.”

“Mmmmm.” Blue leaned against Ronan even more. “‘Night, Ronan.”

He waited until he was sure she was asleep, then patted her head like Noah used to. “Goodnight, Blue.”

 

The second memory of Blue that stood out the most in Ronan’s mind demonstrated her bravery. When the incident with the skeleton animals occurred and they had been separated from Adam and Gansey, Ronan watched as Blue stared into the lake. She was calm at first, but then she started screaming for her mother. Since Ronan saw his father dead, he assumed Blue was seeing her mother. She tried to jump in, but Ronan held her back, kept her safe. He held her until he was certain that she wasn’t going to jump in. 

When she told him that she planned to walk across the lake, the same lake that could be toxic, he had been momentarily stunned. He had never thought this small girl, this girl who he thought would take everything from him, was so brave. 

He didn’t think twice before giving her his headlight. She needed it more than he did, and if she could be brave, he could, too. 

 

“Wake up,” a female voice hissed. Ronan was halfway between dream, blood still trickling down his arms and face, and reality, the Barns and his friends. “Ronan, come on, wake-up.”

Ronan opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but his body was locked in place. Blue leaned over him, her expression pained. He wondered briefly where Adam was, because Adam was usually the one who dragged him from his nightmares, but then he remembered that he had gone with Gansey to visit Henry. 

Sensation slowly returned to his body, but when he made to scramble away, Blue pressed his arms down. 

“Don’t move for a second,” she said. She glanced at the blood coating his hands, then ran off. After a few seconds, she brought back a towel and a bowl of water. She dipped the towel into the water and started scrubbing the blood from his arm. 

“The fuck, Maggot?” Ronan asked hoarsely. He must have been screaming a lot for his voice to be so raw. He considered pushing Blue away, but he couldn’t bring himself to be terrible to her, not when his emotions were so raw. 

“Cleaning you up. Blood isn’t decent, Lynch.” She finished with one of his arms and started on the other. “Are you okay?”

Ronan didn’t lie. “No.”

“Who was it about?”

The dreamscape had been plain at first, gray and white and misty, and then all the people he cared about had emerged: Adam, Gansey, Ronan, Matthew, Opal, Declan, and of course, Blue. After that, he had all been torn to shreds by his dream creatures while he watched helplessly. He had screamed for them to at least leave him one person. The creatures stopped, all his loved ones still alive at that point, and asked him to choose who he wanted to live. Ronan had hesitated, so they killed Adam brutally. That’s who the blood was from. After, they killed Gansey and Blue. Ronan still couldn’t choose, though, and eventually, they were all dead. 

“Everyone. Everyone was dead.” He curled up on himself and tried not to cry. “They killed everyone, Blue.”

“It’s okay. We’re alive. Look.” She took his hand and placed it around her wrist. He could feel her pulse, telling him that she was gloriously alive. “Gansey and Adam and everyone else is alive, too.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got that.” 

Blue fiddled with her sleeve. “Have you been having these dreams a lot since… Gansey?”

“Yeah.” Ronan sank back against the pillow. 

“Does Adam know?” 

“No.” Ronan couldn’t bring himself to tell Adam that he was still having these nightmares so many months later. Adam was at college, enjoying himself and getting an education. Once in awhile, Ronan indulged himself and called Adam, but since the nightmares were so frequent, he couldn’t call every night. “And don’t you fucking tell him.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Blue wiped the last of the blood from his face. “That’s between you two.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, until the quiet was weighing down too heavily on Ronan. “Thanks,” he whispered. “For being here.”

Blue’s mouth fell open, but she recovered quickly. “Anytime.” She leaned her head against Ronan’s shoulder, and they stayed like that until the sun came up. 

 


End file.
